“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Thursday, 27 February 2014

Glitch Mob’s debut, Drink the Sea, was rich in atmosphere and although the tracks were a
little too quirky for your average night club they had a unique character to
them that pulled in the listener. Love
Death Immorality, the electronic three-piece’s second album, seems to be a
step in the wrong direction. Although pristinely produced and rich in texture, the
group’s new sound has the personality of a plank. It’s a mixture of Skrillexy
brostep and generic electro house that’s far too calculated. The build-ups and
melodies are predictable and fail to cling to the cortex. I’d like to say the
group got more accessible, but the multiple layers make this almost too complex
for the mainstream club scene. It’s a shame – the group have clear bags of talent
and a definite ear for texture. What’s sorely missing is a playful sense of
creativity.

Friday, 21 February 2014

Eighties New Wave is being revived to death. The
Strokes, Foals, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand are just a
handful of the indie bands that have been getting their hussar-style jackets on
and grooming their bouffants to embrace their inner Duran Duran. Australian group,
The Jezabels, are also riding the bandwagon. However, unlike their contemporaries,
The Jezabels have thrown away all the groove and vivacity of New Wave, reviving
the genre whilst simultaneously sucking all the life out of it.

To be fair, there are occasional instants on
this record in which its airy, sunny synths succeed at being quite pretty. However,
for all its mellowness, it suffers from a lack of dynamics that makes it altogether about as pretty as a
kitten without a pulse. Lead singer, Hayley Mary, can certainly sing but her
vocals just aren’t emotive or catchy. The banal chord progressions accompanying
her contribute to a record that’s overall just forgettable. Impressively forgettable. Unforgettably forgettable? Let’s not get silly now...

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Top Dawg Entertainment’s latest inductee shows
off his versatility on this super-chill so-called “EP” (since when did a nearly-fifty-minute
running time not constitute as a full album?). The young Tennessee rapper knows
how to switch up his flow and deliver a sweet hook. He’s also real and he knows it. Aided by some
smooth, lush, loungey beats, Civilia Demo
makes for a truly engaging hip hop record great for vibing to! I can’t say I was all too enamoured by the lyrics. The
tributes to his hip hop idols, Scarface and Master P, were pretty nice and he
has some touching stuff to say about fatherhood. Other than that nothing really
stuck with me. The dude sure likes the herb, I got that much.

Thursday, 6 February 2014

At a glance, some of the track titles on this album – “I can’t
live without my mum” and “I love my dad” – initially struck me as the soppy
corniness only a kid would come up with. However, this succinct openness swiftly
reveals itself to be the thing that makes Benji
so goddamn good.

Folk singer Mark Kozelek (aka Sun Kil Moon) exchanges poetry
for simplistic storytelling. The songs centre largely around tragedy, Mark recounting
rose-tinted tales from his past that all seem to end unhappily with death. The tracks are
by and large intensely intimate and intensely depressing: some designed to be
genuine tearjerkers, others so bluntly depressing that they become comical - I think
intentionally so. When Mark sings “my uncle died in a fire on his birthday”
(pretty bloody depressing stuff) he seems to not be wallowing in the sadness of
it but instead admiring the irony. There are moments in which the humour is
certainly much less subtle, like in the track “dogs”. Even most gangsta rappers
wouldn’t dare to reach the jarring levels of sexual explicitness found in this song.
Then there’s the closer, “Ben’s my friend”, perhaps my favourite track on the
album. Some of the vocal hooks such as “blue crab cakes” and “sports bar shit”
are hilariously bizarre and the arrival of a bass guitar, drums and a smoky sax
into the mix all help to create a classy and elegant crescendo to the record, transporting the listener to a swanky apartment overlooking the moonlit New York City skyline. Well, that's the scene I pictured anyhow.

An emotional maelstrom, Benji
is an album that will certainly stick with you for a while. Indeed, the album
is obsessed with death and loss, but it leaves you feeling somewhat
enlightened. Mark seems to overall be celebrating life’s tragedies rather than
mourning them, valuing them as experiences that have built him as a person,
experiences that make us all who we are. But anyway, I won’t pretend to be a philosopher.
In simple terms, Benji is deep stuff that
made my mascara run and yikes, life is fragile! #manscara #yolo #listentothisalbum

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

So Long, See You Tomorrow
is a vibrant, jaunty record buzzing with cosmopolitan sounds from all around
the globe. Guitars have been stripped back, along with most other traces of the
indie rock template, to create an unclassifiable and exotic genre soup. Choppy
samples and prominent bass showcase a clear hip hop influence. Meanwhile, the
use of tribal percussion and Asian-inspired melodies demonstrate world music
influences. Songwriter and front man, Jack Steadman, was travelling whilst
writing a lot of the material for this album and at points the oriental aromas
and foreign sights really come to life through the melodies and sounds. If
the lyrics were a little more concrete they could elevate this album into
something truly dizzying in flavour. A truly animated and creative listen that's worth checking out.

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

This is my first encounter with Glaswegian
post-rock group, Mogwai. I’ve never liked the term “post-rock” but because
I don’t know how else to categorise this group I’ll roll with the term just
this once.

“Rave tapes” is the group's eighth studio album. Soft eighties
techno synths dovetail with twangy electric guitars to create an
instrumental album worthy of a movie soundtrack, soothing and gentle in mood. I say “instrumental” – there are
occasionally spots of vocals on this record such as the lullaby whispering on “Blues Hour” and
the incomprehensible vocoders on the final track “Lord is Out of Control”. Fragments
of bizarre spoken word are also employed on the track “Repelish” detailing the use of Satanic subliminal messaging in Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. It’s a bit
of a weird moment on the album but quite frankly the record could do with a few
more weird moments. Indeed, “Rave Tapes” succeeds at creating a brilliantly
calming and consistent atmosphere and every track flows excellently, but a scarcity
of standout moments prevents this record from being anything other than decent background
music.